The application claims a priority based on Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-59347 filed on Mar. 3, 2000 and Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-344904 filed on Nov. 13, 2000, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purpose.
The present invention relates to a musical sound generation technique, and more particularly, to a technique of generating sound data based on software and hardware in a separate manner.
There have been known computer-controlled, musical sound generators which read musical score data and output sounds represented by the musical score data. In such a musical sound generator, the computer normally controls a sound processor dedicated for acoustic processing to synthesize a sound, followed by D/A conversion, and then the resultant sound is emitted from a loudspeaker.
However, sounds with more presence which send more realistic sensation have been sought after to meet the users"" need. According to conventional techniques, a newly designed sound processor and newly produced hardware could be installed to a musical sound generator in order to satisfy the need. However, the development of such new hardware is costly and time-consuming. Therefore, the hardware-wise adaptation would not be readily achieved.
Meanwhile, if the processing is entirely performed software-wise, the processing takes so long that sounds are delayed. This is particularly disadvantageous when images and sounds are combined for output.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a musical sound generation technique according to which software processing and hardware processing are combined.
In order to achieve the above-described object, the following processing is performed according to the present invention. More specifically, a part of musical score data is taken and first digital data is output based on the taken musical score data. The processing is performed by a sound synthesis circuit. Another part of the received musical score data is read, and second digital data is generated based on the read musical score data. The processing is performed by a processor which has read a program describing the processing. The first and second digital data pieces are converted into analog signals. The processing is performed by a D/A converter.